Author Archives: D.B. Riego

A New Kind of Brew

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Second, perhaps, only to the meteoric rise in popularity of local micro and craft breweries is the proliferation of local coffee. Be it cafés, roasting or specialty brewing, coffee has never been more popular as an entrepreneurial endeavor in America. I’m especially excited about the local coffee scene that’s been brewing in the Triangle for the last few years. Continue reading →

Magnum Carter

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Hip hop artist retirements are about as meaningful as Brett Favre in sweats so it should come as no surprise to anyone that Jay Z1 just released his fourth post-retirement LP, Magna Carta … Holy Grail (iTunes). Jay Z never ascended to the top of my all-time hip hop legends list, but I’ve always recognized his value as one of hip hop’s most broadly appealing entertainers. My sense has always been that Jay excelled at perfectly placed samples2 and breathy, sometimes stuttery hooks3, dabbling in both the boastful, party anthem and truth from the streets sides of hip-hop without ever diving completely in. I’ve seen some criticisms of this album stating that it lacks lyrical punch. My passive listening thus far hasn’t helped shed any light on that specific point, but I will say that Jay’s lyrical prowess never impressed me as much as his unique delivery and overall cool. The longevity of Jay’s career means the span of his relevancy sometimes pits him in the company of Biggie and Tupac and subsequent comparisons therein – comparisons that a living legend wouldn’t outwardly shy away from but are nonetheless patently unfair. Some critics believe every significant artist’s release should be their magnum opus, an inherently flawed opinion that would drive any sane individual to retirement papers. I’ll go out on a limb and say that this isn’t Jay Z’s magnum opus (nor his holy grail), but it definitely has some bright spots.

Before I listened to a note, the tracks I heard the most noise in the blog and twitterspheres were “Tom Ford” and “Part II (On the Run)”. Both are solid tracks, with “Part II” being the more appealing track of the two for my ears thanks, in part, to Beyonce’s appearance on the track (which is probably the reason for its relative notoriety). The beat on “Tom Ford” (the impetus for most of the praise I read), is pretty cool but the rest of the track isn’t really where Jay Z excels for me. After listening to the album for almost two days straight now, the most notable tracks are “Holy Grail”, “Oceans”, “F.U.T.W.”, and “Nickels and Dimes”. “Holy Grail” features upcoming tour-mate and controversial night-stealer Justin Timberlake singing a verse/hook that occupies at least half of the song. “Oceans” is a nice background song, offering a smooth hook courtesy of Frank Ocean, with a steady lyrical flow. “F.U.T.W.” offers up my favorite knockout opening line (“Don’t be good … be great”) and the bassy, muddled beat reminds me of RZA inspired work from the height of Wu-Tang Clan’s popularity (“C.R.E.A.M.” anyone?). “Nickels and Dimes” is probably the weakest track of the ones I’ve highlighted but, as I mentioned earlier, I’m a sucker for samples and rhymes. This concluding track lives up to HOVA’s reputation for the right hook at the right time with tight rhymes.

When Magna Carta … was released I emailed a close friend who most closely shares my musical sensibilities and asked him if it was a must-purchase. He responded by asking if I’ve ever been disappointed by a Jay Z purchase? To be fair, I only own one complete album4 so that advice proved inconclusive for me at the time. After listening to the album for a couple of days I’m ready to conclude that it’s a worthy purchase for die-hards, but might be best left to a la carte purchasing or streaming via subscription services (Rdio or Spotify) for more casual fans. It’s not a career defining album, but it is a great addition to a hall of fame worthy resume.

Rating: Notable

  1. Jay Z’s representatives have recently confirmed that his moniker is now hyphen-free
  2. “Hard Knock Life”, “Song Cry”, “’03 Bonnie & Clyde”, “Empire State of Mind”, “Young Forever”
  3. “Can I Get A …”, “Jigga My Nigga”, “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”, “Dirt off your Shoulders”, “99 Problems”
  4. Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, owing to its release before the Napster/iTunes a la carte era of music downloading/buying. This is also Jay Z’s all-time best selling album in the U.S., certified 5x Platinum.

Salvo

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Man of Steel (June 14th, Warner Bros), the Superman reboot written by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan (the team that famously resurrected Bruce Wayne) and brought to life by Zack Snyder (300, The Watchmen) delivers a ton of action but at what cost? As Zod and Superman duke it out the destruction spills over from Metropolis into our preconceived notion of a pacifist Superman. Snyder does succeed in finally delivering a Lois Lane worthy of Pulitzer prize winning wit and journalistic toughness. The origin story is told in a fresh, yet disjointed manner worthy of the Goyer/Nolan trademark while avoiding a slip into the Dark Knight formula that brought the Batman franchise back to life. Overall, I loved many of the little pieces, but I can’t seem to convince myself that the pieces coalesced into a cohesive narrative consistent with the Superman persona. This might just be a franchise built to be incomplete without the whole (as suggested by Dan Moren on The Incomparable #146). I’ll definitely watch it again, although this time with a more critical, less midnight-tired eye.

Meanwhile, in 1968 New York, Don Draper finally faces a reckoning, both in the mirror and at the hands of the partners at SC&P. A lot happens in Mad Men’s sixth season, but no single episode seemed to progress toward a resolution as the season finale (June 23rd, AMC). As well as any show I’ve ever watched, Mad Men finales shove resolutions in front of you that stand on their own as an end, yet leave you wanting more without relying on dramatic cliffhangers.1 Three moments from the finale stood out to me most: Trudy’s gently brutal conversation with Pete, Don’s unraveling during the Hershey pitch, and finally the look of realization on Sally’s face outside of Don’s childhood home. Some, if not all, of these moments might be predictable, but the gradual build provides enough dramatic tension without carelessly yanking the string by jumping to the conclusion too forcefully. The historical context this season served as more than a backdrop, it was almost like its own character; interacting with and impacting characters in transformative ways.

Coincidentally, Man of Steel and Season 6 of Mad Men both break new ground for their respective heroes. Man of Steel explores a less consistent (though well portrayed) Clark Kent, while Season 6 of Mad Men presents us with a Don Draper who has seemingly hit rock bottom and finds that victories are fewer and harder to come by. These are entirely new and foreign insights into the respective protagonists and, through the lens of our established notions of them, the change is jarring and maybe a little bit uncomfortable. For Mad Men we have the promise of Season 7 to fuel 9-10 months of theorizing how thing swill play out for Don. With Man of Steel, we can almost certainly count on at least a sequel, if not a trilogy, to see if the filmmakers can bring together some of the great pieces they introduced with the opening salvo.

  1. Intentional, it seems, based on Alan Sepinwall’s recent interview with Matthew Weiner↩.

A Mountainous Feast Fit For the Sea

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No two visits to The Lobster Trap (35 Patton Ave, Asheville; $17-$49) have to be the same but, in my opinion, there are two requirements for every trip: oyster shooters and lobster macaroni & cheese. Fill in the rest however you please. Even if you disregard my recommendations, I dare say you will not be disappointed. In two trips to this downtown Asheville institution, I certainly have not.

The Food

On the most recent outing back in May, the group decided to attempt The Lobster Trap Feast – a smorgasbord of menu offerings fit for a party of four to six (our party included eight, myself and two others going out on our own to explore the menu). The seemingly never-ending arrival of food to the table is impressive, if not overwhelming. It begins with the oysters, pulled from a selection of locales and prepared to your preferred temperature, cooked or raw. Cups of soup or bisque soon follow, paving the way for the main event, a smattering of crustaceans, mussels and clams. A selection of sides for this group begins and ends with lobster macaroni and cheese, possibly with a vegetable somewhere in there to placate the carbohydrate overload.

I’m not a lobster guy1, but I do enjoy seafood. Over two separate trips to The Lobster Trap I’ve tried their crab cakes, the aforementioned lobster mac & cheese, and, most recently, grilled tuna accompanied by the superfood du jour, avocado2, and matching drizzle. I ordered the tuna rare and it arrived as near to perfection as I could detect. To put it succinctly, the food was spot on.

The Drinks

Not to be outdone by the kitchen, the bar offers a wide variety of cocktails, even putting their own spin on a few classics. This group has been on a bourbon kick lately, and many of the custom offerings, sounding like unique yet familiar concoctions3, catered perfectly to our tastes. The Lobster Trap is also associated with its own brewery, though I don’t think any of us took a dip. I’ve already mentioned the oyster shooters, which are fantastic.

The Room

The Lobster Trap is smallish, and is certainly not quiet. The staff is very pleasant and accommodating – the hostess took a cell phone number and offered to call us to let us know when our table was ready, allowing us to pre-game around downtown Asheville while we waited. The eight of us sat reasonably comfortable at one of their large booth tables, with one person at the end. The atmosphere is rustic without feeling old; modern materials intended to look old adorning the room.

Experience

Someone once asked me why we eat. Unguarded and let down by my inner Admiral Ackbar4, I fumbled through an apathetic, yet ill-fated response. Emboldened by my failure, my antagonist proceeded to lecture me on food’s vital role as an energy source for our bodies and our collective over-dependence on food as a source of pleasure5. But, to me, this is an overly simplistic view of the relationship between food and the human experience. If we are all just machines, mechanical processes dependent on optimized input and output for the most efficient operation, then yes, food is just fuel. But we’re not. We are human, designed to experience pleasure, to fellowship with each other and, when possible, share our experiences with each other. I’ve been fortunate to be in great company every time I’ve visited The Lobster Trap, but being complicit in that experience is no small feat. As easy as it may be to serve as the backdrop for that experience, it can be just as easy to ruin it. The Lobster Trap nails it, providing a great atmosphere, pleasant and accommodating staff, and fantastic food to top it off.

Rating: Notable.

  1. It falls into a category I call “Things I Don’t Need to Know I Like”.↩
  2. I am among the smitten.↩
  3. Our waitress claimed authorship of one of the drinks (Smokey Eye).↩
  4. “It’s a trap.” ↩
  5. Later that evening, he proceeded to wrestle with our waiter over the limited, perhaps even non-existent, gluten-free options on the Applebee’s menu. In 2003. ↩

The Burger is Back

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It might have started long ago elsewhere, but in Raleigh and the rest of the Triangle, the burger is back. Fast-growing national chains like Five Guys and BurgerFi have made their way into the market and now local hot spots are sprouting up – each with their own spin: Tribeca Tavern, a moderately up-scale establishment that grinds their own beef and features their own brews (along with others, including a decent selection of NC brews); Bull City Burger – a walk-up and order establishment serving locally sourced, grass-fed beef, sporting an in-house brewery and unique wine bar situated in a revitalized downtown Durham; Chuck’s – part of Ashley Christensen’s three-headed restaurant experiment in downtown Raleigh; Only Burger, a burger stand that started (and still exists) as a food truck; and the subject of this review, Charlotte-based Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar (nee Big Daddy’s) – a specialty burger shop with full bar, end-capping a new structure in the Seaboard Station area of downtown Raleigh.

At first glance, Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar (111 Seaboard Ave, Raleigh; $10-$13) seems like a retread of a familiar concept – a bar that serves burgers. Novel idea, right? But the name and ambiance imply something different – almost as if the founders wanted to flip that concept on its head. Start with a great burger, add myriad options and serve some drinks along with it. The menu, as one member of my dinner party commented, seems to require the time to consume at least one beer to sort out. We witnessed this first hand when another fellow diner ordered a side salad – the options seemingly sprouting at every turn from his lettuce base (two choices), two “toppings”, a fruit, a meat, and a dressing! The burger options were similarly mesmerizing, offering near endless combinations of toppings and even patty meat mixtures.

Beef lovers eagerly anticipating the ruling on the quality of the hamburgers will be disappointed – I opted for a black bean burger, my current obsession when visiting spots that offer one. Though it is also possible to create your own, the menu standard Cantina (with the addition of jalapeños) was enough to satisfy my black bean hankering. As I alluded to earlier, I’ve tried a fair number of black bean burgers in the area and this one certainly found a place near the top. I rarely take an opportunity to jump on the growing sweet potato fries bandwagon, but I strayed from the norm here again. I certainly wasn’t disappointed with my choice, though I will admit that the Bad Daddy’s version of sweet potatoes served french style didn’t stray too far from what I’ve had elsewhere.

And that’s ultimately where I ended up in my overall impression of Bad Daddy’s. The burger’s are great1 – maybe not any better than the best burgers we’ve had in the area, but certainly not discernibly worse. However, the options that Bad Daddy’s provide are so impressive, it’s hard to imagine any burger lover wouldn’t be able to build the burger of their dreams.

Rating: Notable.

  1. According to my cohorts. Among my meat eating dinner party, the average score for the burgers was 7/10 ↩